‘Well,’ Patsy took a deep breath and leaned forward in her seat. ‘I was to sweet-talk that horrible Parker man and get him to take me home. Then I was to, you know, string him along a bit and get him interested in me,’ Patsy’s voice speeded up a little over this admission, as if she didn’t really want to dwell on exactly what that entailed. ‘But make sure, you know, that I got him so interested in me, we started dating. And when I had got that far, we were going to set him up in a sting!’ she concluded happily. ‘Wasn’t that just thrilling? Juliet and Jasper were going to rent a room in a nice hotel, and I was going to invite him in, and then, when he was kissing me and stuff, they’d sneak in and take photographs. Just like in one of those old black-and-white movies with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in it!’

Clement and Vincent exchanged bemused, somewhat helpless glances.

In the back seat, Patsy sighed happily. ‘It would have been so wonderful. The twins would have shown the photographs to Mrs Vander, who’d finally see what an oily oik he really was, and a philanderer and all that, and she’d chuck him and the twins would be so grateful to me we’d be friends for ever!’ She paused to take a much-needed gulp of air. ‘Only … well …’ Her expression fell and she began to look pensive.

‘Yes?’ Clement encouraged her. ‘Well, what?’

‘Well, things went wrong, didn’t they? I mean, it started off all right,’ Patsy said, her little chin coming up gamely. ‘I played my part just right, and I made sure I followed him out when he was leaving the party and asked him if he could give me a lift back home. I was staying that night with my aunt in Wolvercote, you see, because Jasper said that the Parker man lived only a stone’s throw from there. And I was all set to be scintillating and fascinating and get him to agree to take me out on a date and stuff but …’

‘But?’

‘Well, he sort of got all sleepy on me. His voice started to slur and once or twice I had to grab the steering wheel to stop him from hitting some parked cars. And then, finally, when we got close to Wolvercote he turned down this road and went straight into a tree!’

She sounded very aggrieved by this.

‘And what did you do?’ Vincent finally spoke, too caught up in this wild and weird tale to be able to keep silent anymore.

‘What do you mean?’ Patsy asked, looking and sounding puzzled.

‘I mean, what did you do when the car crashed? Were you hurt yourself?’ Vincent persisted.